To expand to public health, EPA plans to make connections between climate change and everything from temperatures to air quality and expanded ranges of vector-borne and tick-borne diseases.

The EPA document said dealing with public health and welfare had “solid legal defensibility.”

The Obama EPA’s analysis is significant; the Bush ruling ignored global warming’s effects on public health, focusing only on “welfare and the links between greenhouse gases and visibility, weather, crop damage and soil.” View the slide show here.